Google Wallet with tap and pay will be compatible with Nexus S 4G by Google, available on Sprint®.

Read More @ Google

The MeeGo 1.2 Core OS provides a complete set of enabling technologies for mobile computing.

Some highlights of the MeeGo Core stack include:

• MeeGo Reference Kernels supporting a variety of Intel Atom and ARMv7 platforms.
• QML Application Framework and extended Qt-Mobility APIs, including additional location, system, connectivity, and sensor/haptic capabilities for rapid, rich, application development.
• Enhanced Telephony and Connectivity capabilities, including:
  • GSM, GPRS, and HSPA+ network support
  • SIM Application Toolkit
  • Expanded Bluetooth profiles
  • Expanded VPN and wireless authentication methods
  • USB, WiFi, and BT-PAN data tethering capability
  • Enhance multimedia support, including RTSP streaming with progressive download

This release also includes the following:

• Netbook UX 1.2 complete set of core applications for netbooks.
• In-Vehicle Infotainment (IVI) UX 1.2 includes a sample IVI Homescreen and speech recognition enabled Application Launcher built with QML, as well as a collection of commonly used applications.
• Tablet Developer Preview
• MeeGo SDK 1.2 for MeeGo Core OS and supported UXs.

Please refer to the Core and UX release notes, as well as the Developer Resources documentation pages, for a more complete list of features and supported platforms.

The search engine had hoped to create a mass digital library of every article ever written, but Google has announced that it will not be processing any more files.

A spokesperson for Google said, “We work closely with newspaper partners on a number of initiatives, and as part of the Google News Archives digitization program we collaborated to make older newspapers accessible and searchable online.

“These have included publications like the London Advertiser in 1895, L’Ami du Lecteur at the turn of the century, and the Milwaukee Sentinel from 1910 to 1995.”

Source: TechRader (Read More)

The release of Ubuntu 11.04 has seen the arrival of a new look and feel for Ubuntu. A whizzy, new launcher and dash, and a clever workspace manager are some of the biggest changes. Take a look at what’s new and then feel free to choose between the classic and new desktop experiences at login.

Go to the Ubuntu website and download today!

Twitter users often use applications (apps) designed by third-party companies to send and receive private messages on Twitter. Twitter will now force some companies to ask users’ permission to serve them their messages and deny other firms any access to the data at all.

“By the middle of June, applications that do not need access to your direct messages will no longer have it, and you can continue to use these apps as usual,” Twitter said.

Twitter users will also be able to set the levels of access they give application companies to their accounts, Twitter said.

“When you first connect an application to Twitter, we’ll give you more detailed information about what you’re allowing the app to do with your account,” the Twitter blog said.

“These activities may include reading your Tweets, seeing who you follow, updating your profile, posting Tweets on your behalf, or accessing your direct messages. If you’re not comfortable with the level of access an application requests, simply say ‘No, thanks’,” Twitter said.

Twitter said it had updated its permissions policy in response to requests from users and web developers to clarify the issues surrounding user privacy controls.

The majority of the communications posted on Twitter are in the public domain. The company has recently been at the centre of a privacy issue after an anonymous user posted details about celebrities’ private lives. The user claimed to unmask the identity of the celebrities who have court orders in place banning their names from being published.

Source: The Register (Read More)

It follows a warning from German security researchers that more than 99% of handsets were potentially leaking information.

The flaw meant hackers could have gained access to data within the phones’ calendar and contacts applications.

Such issues are likely to become more frequent, warned security experts.

Google said in a statement: “We’re starting to roll out a fix which addresses a potential security flaw that could, under certain circumstances, allow a third party access to data available in calendar and contacts.

“This fix requires no action from users and will roll out globally over the next few days.”

The vulnerability affected the login credentials for some applications.

The ID token that allows people to access the service without the need to keep logging could be intercepted by criminals if they were sent over unsecured wireless networks.

With this token, criminals would be able to pose as the user and get at their personal information.

Security experts have praised Google’s quick response to the issue but warned that the huge range of Android smartphones on the market leaves Android devices open to security issues.

Source: BBC News (Read More)

Hundreds of people who installed the software have turned to Apple’s forums for help to remove it.

The program’s tactic of peppering screens with pornographic pictures has made many keen to get rid of it.

MACDefender seems to have been successful because of the work its creators did to make it appear high up in search results.

The number of people seeking help was uncovered by ZDNet journalist Ed Bott. In a blog post, he wrote about finding more than 200 separate discussions on Apple’s official forums about MACDefender.

The volume of reports about the problem was “exceptional” in his experience, he said.

The fake Mac anti-virus software, which goes by the name of both MACDefender and Mac Security, began circulating in early May and has steadily racked up victims.

Such programs, often called scareware, urge people to install software that then pretends to scan a machine for security problems. It then fabricates a list of threats it has found and asks for cash before it will fix these non-existent problems.

Source: BBC News (Read More)

Drupal 7 has received sign-off – finally – adding the ability to embed semantic meta-data into sites using the open-source content management system.

That means Drupal 7 is adding native support for the W3C’s RDFa – a set of XHTML attributes that are designed to turn human readable data into data that’s readable by machines. That could be data such as a location’s map coordinates. RDFa is already being used by Google (see here).

In a statement announcing Drupal 7, the Drupal Community said: “RDFa can add value by giving search engines more detail, details not visible to humans.”

Drupal 7 had been expected as early as last summer, but it slipped as what appears to be a relatively small number of active committers worked hard to lock down the new system’s few remain bugs.

Drupal creator Dries Buytaert reckons Drupal runs one per cent of sites on the web, making it popular but not as popular as WordPress and Joomla, which are first and second respectively.

The phone sports Sony’s Exmor R for mobile, allowing for “best-in-class low-light video and photo capture.”  Stereo bluetooth is made available among other multimedia features including a digital media player, HD video recording as well as a 8.1MP camera for the previously mentioned Exmor R photo and video capturing.

Users will find a full WebKit browser, text and multimedia messaging, Microsoft Exchange support, Wi-Fi, USB mass-storage, 512MB of memory, assisted GPS, as well other Google Apps that come with Android.

This device will undoubtedly be the biggest competitor with the iPad and the upcoming iPad 2 in this coming year, it sporting a Tegra 2 processor, front and back facing cameras, HDMI-out, a gigantic 10-inch display, and sweet connection to Verizon’s super-fast new 4G LTE network. We’ve got a live demo of the device here below. Take a peek and tell us how you think it’ll fare in the coming quarters:

Landscape

Systems management tool Landscape is central to Ubuntu Advantage. With a single web-based interface, systems administrators can manage multiple physical and cloud machines as easily as one. IT teams can avoid manual errors by automating repetitive tasks, such as applying security patches, in just a few clicks.

With a clear view of systems data, IT staff can also quickly pinpoint bottlenecks or other problem areas, and view customised trends of the system parameters that are important to their business.

In order to get a great idea of the value Landscape can bring to your business, we recommend that you install Ubuntu Desktop or Ubuntu Server on up to five systems in your company.

Knowledge Base

Ubuntu Advantage gives customers access to Knowledge Base. Written and audited by senior Canonical engineers, our technical articles on best-practice configurations can help you resolve common issues.

If you like what you’ve seen after 30 days, you can sign up for the full Ubuntu Advantage service. You’ll get dedicated support and legal assurance on top of access to Canonical’s Landscape and Knowledge Base. It’s easy to get involved. We’ll send you an email when your 30 days is nearly up giving you the chance to subscribe.

Check it out at the Canonical website

Other changes include a simplified bookmark sync set-up, ‘polish’ to the add-ons manager and the usual bout of speed, performance and stability enhancements.

• Download @ mozilla.com/firefox/beta/
• For those who demand it be installed properly a PPA is also available

Skype is the process of recovering from a major outage that left users across the world unable to log into the VoIP service on Wednesday.
Many computers that act as supernodes, the systems that provide directory information on Skype, were taken offline “by a problem affecting some versions of Skype”.
As a result many Skype users were unable to contact supernodes and therefore unable to log onto the service.

Call volumes dropped by half on Wednesday from a typical daily volume of 20 million a day as a result. The snafu affected users across the US, Europe and Asia. Users of mobile and desktop versions of Skype were all similarly blighted.

In response, Skype engineers started building new supernodes, a process that may take some hours and had not been completed even by Thursday morning (European time). More advanced features, such as video calling, will take still longer to restore, Skype warns via a message on its status blog.

Skype chief exec Tony Bates has apologised for the outage, which resulted in the loss of an estimated 10 million calls.

Source: The Register

If exploited by a booby-trapped webpage the bug would allow attackers to take control of an unprotected computer.

Code to exploit the bug has already been published though Microsoft said it had no evidence it was currently being used by hi-tech criminals.

A workaround for the bug has been produced while Microsoft works on a permanent fix.

Code injection

The bug revolves around the way that IE manages a computer’s memory when processing Cascading Style Sheets – a widely used technology that defines the look and feel of pages on a website.

Hi-tech criminals have long known that they can exploit IE’s memory management to inject their own malicious code into the stream of instructions a computer processes as a browser is being used. In this way the criminals can get their own code running and hijack a PC.

Microsoft has produced updates that improves memory management but security researchers discovered that these protection systems are not used when some older parts of Windows are called upon.

In a statement Microsoft said it was “investigating” the bug and working on a permanent fix. In the meantime it recommended those concerned use a protection system known as the Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit.

Source: BBC News

The announcement, made at the IFA technology fair in Berlin, was timed to coincide with an Apple media event in the US.

The cloud-based service will be available on PlayStation 3s, Bravia TVs, Blu-Ray players and Sony’s personal computers.

Initially it will offer movies. Music will be added at the end of the year.

Sony’s online services platform Qriocity has offered video-on-demand in the US since April this year but will now be available in Europe.

The Music Unlimited service, due at the end of the year, will give users access to millions of songs.

“Via Qriocity, Sony will deliver a variety of digital entertainment content and services… including video, music, game applications and e-books over time,” said Fujio Nishida, president of Sony Europe.

Source: BBC